page_title: County Durham
section_title: Economic history
hierarchical_section_title: County Durham / Economy / Economic history
caption_attribution_description: English: Gross Added Value for County Durham across 3 industries Created by myself source: http://www.statistics.gov.uk/downloads/theme_economy/NUTS3_Tables_1-12.xls Date: en:2007-08-31
context_page_description: County Durham is a county in North East England. The county town is Durham, a cathedral city.
  County Durham can refer to the modern ceremonial county, the smaller area of a unitary authority, or the historic county with different boundaries. The largest settlement in the ceremonial county is Darlington, closely followed by Hartlepool, Billingham and Stockton-on-Tees. It borders Tyne and Wear to the north-east, Northumberland to the north, Cumbria to the west and North Yorkshire to the south. The area of the unitary authority, Durham County Council, does not include Darlington, Hartlepool or Stockton-on-Tees. The historic county's boundaries stretch between the rivers Tyne and Tees, thus including places such as Gateshead, Jarrow, South Shields and Sunderland, but do not include the part of the modern county south of the Tees.
  During the Middle Ages, the county was an ecclesiastical centre, due largely to the presence of St Cuthbert's shrine in Durham Cathedral, and the extensive powers granted to the Bishop of Durham as ruler of the County Palatine of Durham.
context_section_description: County Durham has long been associated with coal mining, from medieval times up to the late 20th century. The Durham Coalfield covered a large area of the county, from Bishop Auckland, to Consett, to the River Tyne and below the North Sea, thereby providing a significant expanse of territory from which this rich mineral resource could be extracted.
  King Stephen possessed a mine in Durham, which he granted to Bishop Pudsey, and in the same century colliers are mentioned at Coundon, Bishopwearmouth and Sedgefield. Cockfield Fell was one of the earliest Landsale collieries in Durham. Richard II granted to the inhabitants of Durham licence to export the produce of the mines, the majority being transported from the Port of Sunderland complex which was constructed in the 1850s.
  Among other early industries, lead-mining was carried on in the western part of the county, and mustard was extensively cultivated. Gateshead had a considerable tanning trade and shipbuilding was undertaken at Sunderland, which became the largest shipbuilding town in the world – constructing a third of Britain's tonnage.
  The county's modern-era economic history was facilitated significantly by the growth of the mining industry during the nineteenth century. At the industry's height, in the early 20th century, over 170,000 coal miners were employed, and they mined 58,700,000 tons of coal in 1913 alone. As a result, a large number of colliery villages were built throughout the county as the industrial revolution gathered pace.
  The railway industry was also a major employer during the industrial revolution, with railways being built throughout the county, such as The Tanfield Railway, The Clarence Railway and The Stockton and Darlington Railway. The growth of this industry occurred alongside the coal industry, as the railways provided a fast, efficient means to move coal from the mines to the ports and provided the fuel for the locomotives. The great railway pioneers Timothy Hackworth, Edward Pease, George Stephenson and Robert Stephenson were all actively involved with developing the railways in tandem with County Durham's coal mining industry. Shildon and Darlington became thriving 'railway towns' and experienced significant growths in population and prosperity; before the railways, just over 100 people lived in Shildon but, by the 1890s, the town was home to around 8,000 people, with Shildon Shops employing almost 3000 people at its height.
  However, by the 1930s, the coal mining industry began to diminish and, by the mid-twentieth century, the pits were closing at an increasing rate. In 1951, the Durham County Development Plan highlighted a number of colliery villages, such as Blackhouse, as 'Category D' settlements, in which future development would be prohibited, property would be acquired and demolished, and the population moved to new housing, such as that being built in Newton Aycliffe. Likewise, the railway industry also began to decline, and was significantly brought to a fraction of its former self by the Beeching cuts in the 1960s. Darlington Works closed in 1966 and Shildon Shops followed suit in 1984. The county's last deep mines, at Easington, Vane Tempest, Wearmouth and Westoe, closed in 1993.
caption: Graph showing unadjusted gross value added (GVA) in County Durham across 3 industries at current basic prices from 1995 to 2004.
  Legend   Agriculture, hunting and forestry   Industry, including energy and construction   Service activities   TotalSource:[75]
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